The New Yorker: Politics And More

The Washington Roundtable speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the president and C.E.O. of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit, about how America’s founders tried to tyrant-proof their constitutional system, how Donald Trump’s whim-based decision-making resembles that of the dictator Julius Caesar, and what we can learn from the fall of the Roman Republic. Plus, how the Supreme Court is responding to the Trump Administration’s broad claims of executive power. Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, hosts the “We the People” podcast and is the author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.” This week’s reading: “Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Disgrace,” by David Remnick “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “What Putin Wants Now,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback o

The staff writer Eric Lach joins the guest host Andrew Marantz to discuss the alleged quid pro quo between Mayor Eric Adams and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice. Plus, why the President keeps inserting himself into New York City politics and what to make of former Governor Andrew Cuomo’s bid for Gracie Mansion. This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk,” by Susan B. Glasser “Elon Musk Also Has a Problem with Wikipedia,” by Margaret Talbot “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “Trump’s E.P.A. Seeks to Deny Science That Americans Discovered,” by Bill McKibben “Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.,” by Jon Lee Anderson “A Ukrainian Family’s Three Years of War,” by Louisa Thomas  To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Democrats in Washington have seemed almost paralyzed by the onslaught of far-right appointments and draconian executive orders coming from the Trump White House. But some state governors seem more willing to oppose the federal government than congressional Democrats are. In January, Governor Tim Walz, of Minnesota, tweeted, “President Trump just shut off funding for law enforcement, farmers, schools, veterans, and health care. . . . Minnesota needs answers. We’ll see Trump in court.” He’s only one of many Democratic governors challenging the federal government. Walz joins David Remnick to offer his analysis of why Democrats lost the 2024 election, why the Party has been losing support from men, and what Democrats need to do now that Donald Trump is back in the White House. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses the Trump Administration’s decision to bar the Associated Press from Presidential events, Jeff Bezos’s dramatic makeover of the Washington Post’s opinion section, and why freedom of the press matters. Plus, what journalists can do to meet this moment. This week’s reading: “Why Aren’t We in the Streets?,” by Susan B. Glasser “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang “The Peril Donald Trump Poses to Ukraine,” by Keith Gessen “Growing Up U.S.A.I.D.,” by Jon Lee Anderson “Trump’s E.P.A. Seeks to Deny Science That Americans Discovered,” by Bill McKibben To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The staff writer Gideon Lewis-Kraus joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss why people around the world are having fewer and fewer children and how the issue of birth rates has become a rallying cry for the American right. Plus, the lack of political will on the left to contend with the issue; and the societal effects on South Korea, which has the lowest birth rates in the world. This week’s reading: “The End of Children,” by Gideon Lewis-Kraus The Chaos of Trump’s Guantánamo Plan,” by Jonathan Blitzer “The New Trump-Family Megaphone,” by Jon Allsop “Month One of Donald Trump’s “Golden Age,” by Antonia Hitchens “Team Canada’s Revenge, Served Ice-Cold,” by Louisa Thomas  Tune in to The Political Scene wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Since the election, Senator John Fetterman—once a great hope of progressives—has conspicuously blamed Democrats for the electoral loss. Fetterman tells David Remnick that the Democratic Party discouraged male voters, particularly white men. He has pursued a lonely course of bipartisanship by meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before his Inauguration, joining Truth Social, and voting to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General—the only Democrat to do so. But, despite Trump’s relatively high approval ratings, he lambasts the Administration for the “chaos” it is currently sowing in America. Fetterman sympathizes with voters’ widespread disgust with contemporary politicking. “Unlimited money has turned all of us in some way into all OnlyFans models,” he says. “We’re all just online hustling for money.” Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The Washington Roundtable discusses with the Stanford University political scientist Larry Diamond about President Trump’s attempts to claim broad powers, why most Republican lawmakers have fallen into line out of fear, and whether the United States has already tipped over into authoritarian territory. Plus, how the courts, Congress, and ordinary citizens might course-correct American democracy.This week’s reading: “The Crisis of Democracy Is Here,” by Larry Diamond “Trump’s Putinization of America,” by Susan B. Glasser “Pulling Our Politics Back from the Brink,” by Evan Osnos (2020) “Month One of Donald Trump’s ‘Golden Age,’ ” by Antonia Hitchens “We’d Never Had a King Until This Week,” by Bill McKibben “The Trump Administration Trashes Europe and NATO,” by Dexter Filkins “The Second Trump Administration’s New Forms of Distraction,” by Kyle Chayka To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Politica

The New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss Elon Musk’s seizure of power within the U.S. government, the tech industry’s slide into right-wing politics, and how the ideology of techno-fascism is taking root in Silicon Valley. Can the populists and the technologists coexist in Donald Trump’s Washington? This week’s reading: “Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency,” by Kyle Chayka “The Second Trump Administration’s New Forms of Distraction,” by Kyle Chayka “Make South Africa Great Again?,” by Isaac Chotiner “Elizabeth Warren Fights to Defend the Consumer Protection Agency She Helped Create,” by John Cassidy “A Fistfight Over Donald Trump at the Evangelical Version of Harvard,” by Emma Green To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In Donald Trump’s first term in office, the American Civil Liberties Union filed four hundred and thirty-four lawsuits against the Administration. Since Trump’s second Inauguration, the A.C.L.U. has filed cases to block executive orders ending birthright citizenship, defunding gender-affirming health care, and more. If the Administration defies a judge’s order to fully reinstate government funds frozen by executive order, Anthony Romero, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director, says, we will have arrived at a constitutional crisis. “We’re at the Rubicon,” Romero says. “Whether we’ve crossed it remains to be seen.” Romero has held the job since 2001—he started just days before September 11, 2001—and has done the job under four Presidents. He tells David Remnick that it’s nothing new for Presidents to chafe at judicial obstacles to implement their agendas; Romero mentions Bill Clinton’s attempts to strip courts of certain powers as notably aggressive. But, “if Trump decides to flagrantly defy a judicial order, then I

The essayist and cultural critic Brady Brickner-Wood talks with Tyler Foggatt about the opposition Donald Trump encountered in his first Presidential term, why many liberals are feeling a sense of resignation, and the Democratic Party’s struggle to present a unifying message. Plus, the political commentary embedded in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. This week’s reading: “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?,” by Brady Brickner-Wood “The War on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor “The Fears of the Undocumented,” by Geraldo Cadava  “The Madness of Donald Trump,” by David Remnick “Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Not Fixing U.S. Foreign Aid but Destroying It,” by John Cassidy “Elon Musk’s A.I.-Fuelled War on Human Agency,” by Kyle Chayka “What Happens if Trump Defies the Courts,” by Isaac Chotiner To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to [email protected]. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail

Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-act

The Washington Roundtable is joined by Atul Gawande, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, to discuss Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s rapid-fire dismantling of the agency. They explore the life-and-death implications of the Trump Administration ending foreign aid, why the agency was targeted, and which federal agencies might be next.  This week’s reading: “Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande “Elon Musk’s Revolutionary Terror,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump’s Madness on Gaza,” by David Remnick “How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner “What Happened to the Trump Resistance?” by Brady Brickner-Wood “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “Trump’s Trade War Is Only Getting Going,” by John Cassidy To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to [email protected] with “The Political Scene” in the subject line. Lear

Matthew L. Wald joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss the political aftermath of last week’s horrific collision between an American Airlines plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter. They look at the current state of airline safety, the changes afoot at the Federal Aviation Administration, and President Trump’s wild pronouncements that somehow diversity initiatives were to blame for the crash that claimed sixty-seven lives. “The culture warriors, with such a vengeance, are now turning to the F.A.A.—it’s something new and it’s not healthy,” Wald says. This week’s reading: “How to Understand the Reagan Airport Crash,” by Matthew L. Wald “How Donald Trump Is Transforming Executive Power,” by Isaac Chotiner “The U.S. Military’s Recruiting Crisis,” by Dexter Filkins  “Donald Trump’s Anti-Woke Wrecking Ball,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells  “Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send feedback on this episode, write to themai

In the nineteen-eighties and nineties, Bill Gates was the best known of a new breed: the tech mogul—a coder who had figured out how to run a business, and who then seemed to be running the world. Gates was ranked the richest person in the world for many years. In a new memoir, “Source Code,” he explains how he got there. The book focusses on Gates’s early life, and just through the founding of Microsoft. Since stepping away from the company, Gates has devoted himself to his foundation, which is one of the largest nonprofits working on public health around the globe. That has made him the target of conspiracy theories by anti-vaxxers, including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has asserted that Gates and Anthony Fauci are together responsible for millions of deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates views the rise of conspiracy thinking as symptomatic of larger trends in American society exacerbated by technology. “The fact that outrage is rewarded because it’s more engaging, that’s kind of a human weakness,” he t

 The Washington Roundtable discusses the fallout of the White House releasing, and then rescinding, a memo intended to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans. The incident, as well as this week’s Senate confirmation hearings for controversial Cabinet nominees such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and Kash Patel, offers Democrats an opportunity to seize control of the narrative—if they can get organized, Sheldon Whitehouse, the Democratic senator from Rhode Island, says. “If what Democrats are doing is running around calling them chaotic and incompetent, that’s not going to win the day unless those charges are connected to actual harms happening to regular people.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Cabinet of Revenge,” by Susan B. Glasser “Trump’s Orders Sow Chaos Inside the Nation’s Enforcer of Equal Opportunity,” by E. Tammy Kim “Kash Patel’s Political-Persecution Fantasies,” by Tess Owen “Behind the Chaotic Attempt to Freeze Federal Assistance,” by Atul Gawande “The Junk Science of Robert F. Ke

On Tuesday, the Trump Administration sent out a memo attempting to put a blanket pause on most federal funding, sowing confusion about financing for  student loans, SNAP benefits, nonprofits, and more. The next day, after a backlash, the Administration rescinded the memo, while maintaining that a freeze remains in “full force and effect.” The order created chaos across the federal government, threatening a power struggle between the President, Congress, and the courts. The New Yorker contributor and Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss how Trump’s directives are testing how far a President can go.  This week’s reading: “Trump's Attempt to Redefine America,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “The Unchecked Authority of Trump's Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer “Donald Trump Throws the Doors to the Patriot Wing Open,” by Antonia Hitchens “Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser “Britain’s Foreign Secretary Braces for the Second Trump Age,” by Sam Knight T

The Washington Roundtable discusses President Trump’s first week in office, during which he broke a record for the most executive orders any modern-day President has signed on Day One. The President’s inaugural address and barrage of orders seemed driven by a sense of grievance, accrued in the course of four years out of office, four criminal prosecutions, and a deep desire for revenge. Will an apparatus of rage, taking form as vengeance, ultimately inhibit the government from performing its functions? Plus, they discuss the Episcopal Bishop Marianne Buddy’s remarks at the interfaith prayer service, and the importance of speaking truth to power. This week’s reading: “Trump Is Already Drowning Us in Outrages,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Unchecked Authority of Trump’s Immigration Orders,” by Jonathan Blitzer “The Big Tech Takeover of American Politics,” by Jay Caspian Kang “Why Is the Mastermind of Trump’s Tariff Plan Still Sitting at Home in Florida?,” by Benjamin Wallace-Wells “How Much Power Does President Tru

Within hours of his Inauguration, and shortly after proclaiming that his victory had been preordained by God, Donald Trump signed dozens of executive orders. These included exiting the World Health Organization, attempting to end birthright citizenship in the United States, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico. He also issued pardons for hundreds of the January 6th convicts. David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what Trump’s first days back in office portend for the next four years. “[Trump] hasn’t changed one iota,” Remnick says, “except that his confidence has increased, and his base has increased, and the obedience of the Republican Party leadership is absolute.”This week’s reading: “Donald Trump’s Inaugural Day of Vindication,” by Susan B. Glasser “Donald Trump Plays Church,” by Vinson Cunningham. “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick “What Trump 2.0 Means for Ukraine and the World,” by Isaac Chotiner “Donald Trump Returns to Washington,” by Antonia Hitchen

The Washington Roundtable discusses this week’s confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and Pam Bondi as Attorney General, and the potential for a “shock and awe” campaign in the first days of Donald Trump’s second term. Plus, as billionaires from many industries gather around the dais on Inauguration Day, what should we make of President Biden’s warning, in the waning days of his Administration, about “an oligarchy taking shape in America”? This week’s reading: ““The Trump Effect”: On Deal-Making and Credit-Claiming in Trump 2.0,” by Susan B. Glasser “The Pressure Campaign to Get Pete Hegseth Confirmed as Defense Secretary,” by Jane Mayer “Why the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Is Happening Now,” by Isaac Chotiner “ ‘An Oligarchy Is Taking Shape,’ ” by David Remnick “How Much of the Government Can Donald Trump Dismantle?” by Jeannie Suk Gersen “The Shock of a Gaza Ceasefire Deal,” by Ruth Margalit To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback

The Eaton and Palisades fires continue to wreak destruction across Los Angeles. They are predicted to become the most expensive fire recovery in American history. As the fires have burned, a torrent of right-wing rage has emerged online. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Charlie Kirk have attacked liberal mismanagement and blamed D.E.I. programs and “woke” politics for the destruction. Meanwhile, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has expressed concerns that the future Trump Administration may add conditions to federal financial-assistance relief for California, something that Republican Congress members have already floated. The New Yorker staff writer Jay Caspian Kang joins Tyler Foggatt to discuss what happens when disaster relief is swept up in the culture war. This week’s reading: “The Insurance Crisis That Will Follow the California Fires,” by Elizabeth Kolbert “On the Ground During L.A.’s Wildfire Emergency,” by Emily Witt “An Arson Attack in Puerto Rico,” by Graciela Mochkofsky “Elon Musk’s Latest Terrif